


Get Up Eight

by LostMachina



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-08-28 17:29:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostMachina/pseuds/LostMachina
Summary: Peter isn't sure he can make it on his own. Maybe he won't have to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to fyeahvulnerablemen for being just generally helpful and running a cool blog.
> 
> Tags will be updated as the story progresses. Will contain abuse, torture of many varieties, as well as other goodies.

Peter's thoughts pierced the dense fog of unconsciousness slowly, then all at once.

At first, the only thing that truly registered was the pain. The ache of exhausted limbs, bruises, and cuts all filtered in, dragging him from senselessness and thrusting him into his fluorescent-lighted, stale surroundings. For a moment, all he could do was blink blearily, struggling to focus his fuzzy gaze.

_Fuck._

He started violently, igniting a new wave of pain considerably more severe than the first and setting off a metallic clinking noise. His eyes flew open.

 _What happened?_ His memory, like the rest of his coherent thoughts, swam in and out of clarity, coming in disjointed bits and pieces. The Bronx, near Yankee stadium... why did everything hurt? Where the hell was his suit? His eyes widened as he looked down at himself, mottled with angry red scrapes and clothed only in a pair of loose fitting sweatpants.

Peter lifted his head experimentally, sucking in a pained breath of air as his body protested even the slight movement. Whatever happened, it certainly felt like he’d royally fucked up, which, coming from him, was really saying something. Steeling himself against the pain, he glanced around the room.

The musty smell permeated the large concrete room, though it wasn’t visibly dirty. Windowless, off-putting, and empty, but clean. The result was slightly clinical, and for some reason Peter wasn’t sure why, the effect made the pit of fear already forming in his stomach curl a little tighter. This was not good.

Dazedly, automatically, Peter tried to push up from his knees and again hissed in pain as his body viciously objected. The sound of metal on metal came once more, and finally Peter looked up. A pair of chains, gleaming and new, descended from the ceiling, ending in manacles clamped around his wrists, which were drawn over his head. His hands were so numb he hadn’t even realized. What the fuck? _Manacles?_ This was bad. Like, really bad. Like-

“Hi, Peter.”

Peter whipped his head around in the direction of the voice, much too fast, and immediately a painful spike of pressure throbbed behind his eyes and the edges of his vision went dark. _Peter?_ More alarm bells in his brain, trying to be heard over the fog. _How does he know my name?_ Again he tried to struggle up to his feet. A wave of nausea rolled over him. His feet were not cooperating. 

“Don’t hurt yourself. ”

He squinted at the figure leaning on the doorway to his left, willing his eyes to just _focus, damn it_. He was trying to calm down and think, but his brain felt like it had been jam packed full of cotton and now there was hardly any room for lucid thoughts. He could feel his chest rising and falling faster and faster. What was this guy saying? Concussion? It felt like he’d gotten hit by a semi and then reversed over to finish the job, not just bumped his head. And who the fuck was this guy? Still struggling to see, Peter finally managed a hoarse, “What the fuck?” The words sounded slurred to his ears.

The man continued on in his easy, conversational tone. “The benzos are a real kick in the pants too, huh? Never tried them myself, but you don’t paint an inviting picture.” The man straightened and began walking towards Peter, and as he did he began to slowly slide into focus. He was dressed in a white tee and dark jeans, a medium build and height with short black hair and a sharp nose. A lit cigarette hung from his lips, and Peter dimly realized that he did not look villainous at all. He was maybe 27, 30 tops. No fancy suit, no cackle.

“Where’s my suit?” His voice came again, hoarse and painful. _Tony’s gonna kill me. This psycho is going to kill me, and then Tony is going to reanimate my corpse, give me a lecture, and then put me back in the fucking ground. Damn it._ The man squatted down in front of him and took a pensive drag on his cigarette. Peter felt a dull pang of satisfaction when he saw he had a busted lip and the beginnings of a dark bruise around his left eye. Hopefully that was his doing.

“Bottom of Harlem River, kid.” He glanced down and put out the cigarette on the floor between his feet, then pulled a bottle of water out from his back pocket and unscrewed the lid. “Thirsty?” he asked before Peter could organize his muddled thoughts into another question, and held the bottle up to his face.

Another wave of dizziness hit him, and though he didn’t want to, he found himself dazedly parting his lips. The man gingerly raised the bottle to his mouth and tipped the contents, allowing him to drink. 

The submissive action immediately made Peter’s skin crawl, for a moment blotting out the terror that sat like a rock in the pit of his stomach, but he was too exhausted and thirsty to do anything but swallow. The only thing still holding him upright on his knees were the manacles on his wrists, biting into his skin and holding his hands in front of his head. After he had finished the bottle, the man lowered it from his lips and tucked it away. His gaze was inscrutable. Peter stared back, feeling more anger and fear welling up inside him. Who _was_ this asshole?

“Where the hell am I? What’s going on?” he spoke slowly, trying not to slur his words again. Did Tony know he was gone? F.R.I.D.A.Y. must have alerted him to something. _Right?_

“I’m not a fan of twenty questions, kid.” The man stood up, grabbed the manacles with one hand and pulled upwards, hauling Peter to his feet. Though he wasn’t particularly rough, he was deft, and Peter heard himself yelp as the metal bit into his skin and the room spun dizzyingly.

“Don’t kidnap people, then,” he snapped weakly. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying desperately to beat back the nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He was surprised to hear a short laugh, and then the sound of metal sliding on metal. The wrist cuffs snapped free with a little clink. Peter’s legs gave out almost immediately, but the man quickly slipped an arm around his waist and caught him. His body protested viciously, spikes of pain digging deeply into his side where the man was holding him upright and black spots swirling across his vision, threatening to take him under.

The man paused patiently, evidently waiting for Peter to gather himself. “Easy, I got ya. Don’t want you face down on the floor.” He gently grabbed Peter’s arm and put it around his shoulders.

This was too much. Peter tried to force himself remember what had happened, but nothing came. He didn’t know who this asshole was, what he was playing at. He wanted desperately to make a run for it, but he was barely standing on his feet as it was. Still, he dug his feet into the ground as best he could when the man tried to move him forward. Half lucid, it was the best he could do.

The man paused for a moment, considering Peter, and then unceremoniously sunk his fist into his abdomen. As always, Peter felt a tingling in the back of his head a few moments before the punch landed, but he was too sluggish to dodge. The air rushed from his lungs and tears sprang to his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. Fuck, that was really hard. Way too fucking hard for a normal guy.

The man released his grip on this waist, and Peter slid to the floor, gasping and dry-heaving on his elbows and knees. He was going to vomit. There was no way-

“You’re in an old processing plant. And the Doc wants to see you, awake. And I’m Ben.” No response from Peter, still trying to force air back into his lungs. Ben stooped over and hoisted Peter up once again, this time gathering him into his arms easily rather than supporting him. “Sorry. I’m not playing games.” 

Peter only barely registered that they were moving. His gaze was sliding in and out of focus again, but he was vaguely aware of fluorescent lights passing over him, one by one. He had gone totally limp in the man’s - _Ben’s?_ \- arms, unable to muster up neither indignation nor fear. Unconsciousness beckoned, threatening to wrap around him like a heavy, dark blanket. He blinked slowly.

“Look alive, kid. Almost there.”

His voice was starting to sound as if it was coming to him through water. Peter squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the lighting suddenly got painfully bright. _What now?_ He flinched as he was lowered onto a cold surface, it seemed to leech any warmth he had left in his body, especially with his bare back. He shivered, and tried to curl up on his side, clutching his head with thin fingers and bruised knuckles. Even with his eyes closed and his face hidden it felt unbearably bright.

“He shouldn’t be so injured, Ben. Nor should you be, for that matter.” A different voice, presumably Doc, gravelly and detached, came from somewhere further away.

“He wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about getting thrown into the van. You’re more than welcome to give it a shot next time.” Ben sounded nonplussed.

“Is he concussed?” The voice was closer now, right over Peter and blocking out some of the light. 

“Probably. I bashed his head on the side of the car. Small dent.”

A sigh. “Turn off the lights then, please.” A few moments and the room went dark. “Thank you. How is his balance?”

“He couldn’t stand on his own. Couldn’t speak very good either.”

“And what’s your excuse?” Doc murmured dryly, rolling the teenage boy onto his back once again. Ben remained tactfully silent while the other man pulled Peter’s eyelids up and examined his eyes one at a time. All Peter could manage in his defense was a low groan, at which the older man clicked his tongue.

“He’s probably suffering from a mild concussion. You gave him the rohypnol?”

 _What’s going on?_ Exhaustion stamped out any real ability to care.

“All of it,” Ben replied.

_When is Tony coming?_

Doc made a noise of acknowledgement. “Yes, it looks like it. Come here and make sure he doesn’t move, I want to catalogue his injuries and take a blood test.”

“I told you-” 

“Just get over here, please.” 

_Does anyone know where I am?_ Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, he felt himself sinking down, through the table, into the floor, down and further down...

“I think you’re losing him, Doc.”

_Tony?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks fyeahvulnerablemen for the beta!

Peter studied the concrete ceiling of the stale room, brows pulled together in frustrated, determined concentration. He was once again on his knees with his hands manacled together above his head. Rivulets of blood carved thin red trails down from his wrists to his forearms and elbows, and then dripped onto the floor in front of him. Whatever the chain was secured to, it wasn’t budging.

He had woken maybe an hour before, with all but the worst of the cuts and scrapes from the previous day faded into no more than pale pink lines. The fear and disorientation had abated as well, but his memory, however, had not improved, and he continued to pull down on the chain almost absent-mindedly as he thought. He remembered the punch in the stomach; it had been enough to send him straight to the floor, which maybe wasn’t entirely impressive in his prior state, but the large greenish bruise that still darkened most of his abdomen definitely did not come from just anyone.

And from there... snippets of conversation, detached from their context, curling up on a hard, cold surface, hands, searching, pushing him down... Peter shivered. He didn’t even know how they’d managed to surprise him in the first place. That really wasn’t a good sign. But as much as he would have loved to puzzle that one together, in the meanwhile, he really, _really_ needed to get out of here. While he was sure that Cap and Tony would be breaking down the door and saving his damsel-ass any second now, he figured he should do his part and at least get out of the _fucking manacles._

He narrowed his eyes at the anchor that fastened the chain to the concrete. Why wasn’t it breaking? Screws in cement weren’t that strong. He slowly wrapped the chain around his right hand and braced himself, ignoring the blood he was smearing on the steel. _One more-_

“The anchor’s embedded in the rebar. You’ll fracture the bones in your hand before you break it.” Peter glanced over at the doorway. Instead of Ben there was another figure, a shorter, older man with brown hair and chunky, square glasses. He was wearing a short lab coat and stood with his hands in his pockets. He dimly recognized the rough voice from earlier, in the dark room.

“Have either of you ever heard of knocking?” Peter asked, nonetheless disentangling the chain from his hand. _Well, that explains it._

The man -Doc, he supposed- continued on as if he hadn’t said anything. Somehow, Peter suspected he would be doing a lot of that. “Get up, please. I need to examine you.” He strode over to where Peter knelt, looking expectant.

Peter flashed him a smile, ignoring how naked he felt without his mask and suit. “I’m good, thanks.”

He saw Doc’s eyes narrow, almost imperceptibly behind his thick lenses. A few terse moments of silence went by. “I don’t think you understand the position you’ve found yourself in.” His voice remained even.

“I’d love to hear your take on it.”

More silence. “I can ask Ben to come in here and beat you up every time I want something done. I’d rather not. It’s messy. It interferes with my data. And I’m sure you don’t care about that, but I do, quite a lot.” Doc took off his glasses and paced as he spoke. “Now, Peter, can you think of any reason to reevaluate your priorities?”

 _Aunt May._ Peter froze. The weight of his own name felt palpable, like he had been punched in the gut. Again. Why hadn’t he thought of Aunt May? They knew who he was, of course they knew about her. Dread wrapped tightly around his chest. But Tony would have thought of that, right? He must be keeping her safe. _Unless_...

“You don’t have her,” Peter said quietly, half asking, half telling. His voice was suddenly hoarse.

“No. The Avengers are protecting your relative, from what I understand.” Doc shrugged. “But, I caught you. And if the Avengers are struggling to safeguard multi-million dollar D.O.D.C. transports of alien weapons, well... I don’t know. Maybe it works out. And maybe it doesn’t.” He leveled his gaze with Peter’s, dark eyes blazing. “But if I know one thing, Peter, it’s that if my boss wants to find her, he will.”

For once, Peter said nothing. He felt an overwhelming sense of nausea gripping his stomach.

Doc smiled, seeming to bask in the absence of an impertinent reply. “Your cooperation is all that I ask.” His eyes bore into Peter’s, quietly daring him to refuse.

Peter gritted his teeth, unable to move. Every fibre of his will screamed at him to shove whatever witty comment that was lurking in the back of his mind into Doc’s smug face and coke-bottle glasses, dig his heels in and send his elbow straight into his hooked nose the first chance he got. But nothing came. His mind whirred desperately, he could find a way out, he _knew_ he could find a way out, but... _Aunt May._ _There’s no way Tony would let... they couldn’t get past Tony._

Watching the man regard him with a faint look of disdain, he felt some of his dread morphing into frustration. His fists clenched, turning his knuckles white. _Who the hell_ are _these people?_ He couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t recognize either of his captors, as hard as he racked his brain. He’d never seen them on the news, he’d never reported on either of them. And they seemed so _mismatched_ . Uncoordinated. A middle-aged evil scientist type ( _his name was_ Doc, _for Christ’s sake)_ and... Peter was having trouble remembering the other one, but he was young, looked born and bred blue collar, and didn’t sound like anyone who had ever made it very far from South Boston. _How the hell did they manage to grab me?_

Doc cleared his throat, arms crossed in front of his chest, waiting. Peter looked up. _Fine._

Jaw still clenched, he stood up slowly, one foot at a time, teetering only momentarily from the numbness in his legs before he regained his balance. He fixed his gaze at the wall behind Doc, pointedly ignoring the shadow of a self-satisfied smile on his lips. He walked around him slowly, sometimes moving his arm aside to get a better look at the most faded of marks. Peter didn’t resist. Drawn down by gravity now that his hands were chained down at waist level, blood began to drip to the floor from his fingertips.

“Is that bruise from Ben? More recent?”

Peter nodded slightly, still studying the wall in front of him. _Think, come on..._

Doc grunted in response before slipping a small, plastic box with some short black straps and a buckle from his coat pocket. It was around an inch deep and an inch and a half wide, with a small pulsing red light at one of the ends. “Now, this is to monitor your heart rate. Please don’t try to remove it,” he said, moving forward. “I wouldn’t jostle it very hard either.”

Before he even reached forward to wrap it around Peter’s neck he instinctively took a confused half-step back, his hands rising up to his chest to block him. One of Doc’s eyebrows shot up questioningly, an unworded threat, prompting Peter to pause uncertainly just long enough for Doc to buckle the collar around his neck. The device let out a short, decisive beep.

Peter’s hands flew up to the straps already biting uncomfortably into his neck, setting off more clinking from the chain. It was so tight that his fingers could barely find purchase under the smooth material. _Heart rate monitor?_ His whole body had tensed up.

Peter suddenly felt like he had just made a very, very big mistake.

Before he could do anything else, Doc had grabbed the chain and swiftly removed Peter’s cuffs. He examined Peter’s bloody wrists, turning them over a few times in his hands and making a noise of disapproval. As soon as he let go Peter’s fingers drew back up to the small box digging into his jugular.

“ _Enough_ . Come on.” Doc grabbed his upper arm and pulled him toward the door. Peter moved forward, just barely resisting the impulse to wrench his arm backwards and safeguard some dignity, or drive his fist through the man’s face. _They couldn’t get past Tony..._ He pressed his lips into a thin line and followed Doc down a windowless hallway.

They arrived at a room that seemed vaguely familiar; metal table in the center, and dark. A heavy metal door shut behind them as Doc flicked the lights on, revealing Ben seated on the floor with his back against the concrete wall and smoking a cigarette. Even Peter was temporarily taken aback by how worn out he looked. Besides a busted lip he had heavy dark circles, his knuckles were split in more than a few places, and his white shirt was pockmarked with droplets of blood and what looked like black grease. His pale blue eyes were glassy, and he only startled to attention a few moments after the lights were turned on.

 _Christ, I don’t think that was all me._ Peter thought, for a moment semi-alarmed. Then he gritted his teeth. _Not like he didn’t deserve it if it was._

Doc huffed at the sight. “Hopefully you got that tantrum-”

“Can it.” Ben took a long drag from his cigarette, seeming to muster up his strength to shoot Doc a frigid glare. His eyes passed over Peter as if he wasn’t there.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” Doc muttered, though he did lower his voice a touch. Ben didn’t press it.

Doc let go of Peter, and he watched as he made his way over to the corner of the room, where Peter noticed there was a metal box, a little bigger than a large bathtub. Doc lifted the hinged lid and rested it on the wall.

Peter glanced over, trying to look inside. _Water? And... ice?_ He frowned. _Oh, shit._

“Come on. In and out, kid.” Ben spoke as he got to his feet, stony-faced except for the barest trace of something in his tired eyes.. frustration, maybe? No, not frustration. Pity. It was definitely pity.

 _Pity?_ Peter wondered dimly. His feet felt heavy, stuck to the ground.

“Either you get in or Ben forces you in,” Doc broke in in his clinical, dry voice. “And Peter, I was lead to believe that you were an intelligent boy. I would appreciate it if the memory of our conversation earlier lasted longer than ten minutes.”

_God, Aunt May, I hope you’re okay._

“I’d appreciate not being kidnapped by Dr. Frankenstein and Igor over there but hey, we don’t always get what we want, right?” The response came through his clenched teeth even as he walked towards the tub. _Fine. Ice baths. You’ve had worse._

Doc ignored the comment. “Pants off, please.”

The oversized sweatpants come off easily, and Peter somehow had the presence of mind to be faintly relieved that he was wearing boxers, and unlike the sweatpants, that they were his own. “Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t raised by animals.” _Ice bath. No problem._ He stepped into the tub and lowered himself down in one fluid movement.

The ice water was frigid, it bit painfully into his skin and pushed all the air from his chest as his muscles seized. He bit back a gasp as he immediately started shivering, but nonetheless allowed himself to sink deeper until the water was wetting the back of his head. He stuffed his fingers underneath his armpits to keep them at least slightly warm, though he knew that wouldn’t work very well for long.

“Wh... what... now?” He had to force the syllables out one by one around the shivers that wracked his body and his tensed jaw. He glared up at Doc.

“Now, we wait.” Doc said, a small smile on his lips. He leaned over and grabbed the metal lid.

Peter’s eyes widened, a sudden sickening wash of panic clenching around his heart. They couldn’t close the lid. “Wait up. No, _HEY!”_ His hand shot out to catch it, but Ben had grabbed the other side, and it slammed down with a jarring _clang_ that reverberated between his ears. He plummeted into absolute, smothering darkness.

Peter screamed, and his voice echoed painfully, filling what little space he had between the water and the cover of his metal prison. “ _OPEN THE FUCKING BOX, YOU FUCK!_ ” He pounded on the steel with his fist, sloshing freezing water into his open mouth and almost choking him. The collar was too tight, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t. Fucking. Breathe.

He screamed again, and the noise ended somewhere between a gag and a gasp as he arched his back to keep his head above the water and his numb fingers desperately scrabbled, and failed, to loosen the straps. His voice rang impossibly loud in his own ears, somehow adding to the petrifying suffocation, the feeling of being buried alive in a watery grave.

His short, fraught wheezing finally closed his throat to the point where he could no longer scream, only shake, more from the terror that gripped his body than the freezing cold. His heart pounded furiously in his tightening chest. “Fuck... _please, please... please help, somebody, please..._ ” His voice came is a strangled whisper, choked with the tears that stung at his eyes and his gasps for air.

_Oh god, I’m going to die, I’m going to die here, oh god..._

Silence was the only reply.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter, next one will be longer and I believe we'll be giving poor Peter a break.
> 
> Thanks fyeahvulnerablemen for the beta.

Peter lost track of time.

At first he had just felt intensely cold, but now the icy pain came in waves, and the rest of the time he was beginning to feel nothing at all. Every once in a while he touched the metal sheet inches in front of his face just to remember something was there.

_An hour? Two? More? Less?_

He didn’t know. Each moment dragged on into forever. The only thing to keep time was the sound of his own shallow breaths, and he tried to count them just to focus his thoughts but without even realizing it his mind would wander, for minutes, for seconds, he didn’t know... and he would need to start all over. He was getting tired.

_Focus, Peter, focus... just... focus._

His body had gone so totally numb that he felt untethered somehow, suspended in darkness. It was dizzying. With a frown, he reached a hand up to touch the lid once again and steady himself, but he was puzzled to find that nothing was there. He reached further and further, straining his arm, grasping, and yet, nothing.

He was in space, floating. It almost felt peaceful, and he was on the brink of unconsciousness when he felt himself being jostled uncomfortably, lifted, felt something digging painfully into his shoulders.

A muffled voice pierced the darkness.

“ _Peter, wake up. Come on.”_

 _Just ten more minutes, Aunt May._ He heard a faint groan. Was that him?

The voice came again, more urgent. “ _I know, it hurts. But you gotta come back now, kid.”_

Aunt May didn’t call him ‘kid’... right?

Peter’s eyes flew open with a hitched gasp, his mind coming back to consciousness painfully, all at once. Where was he? He tried to sit up, scrabble for purchase, anything. The box. He was in a fucking box-

“Easy, _easy_! Take it easy!”

“ _Get me out!_ ” Peter thrashed, scrambling away from the voice in a panic even as he shook with the cold. It was dark, it was still so dark, everything was closing in. _“Please-”_

The air was suddenly forced out of Peter’s lungs by a massive weight, pinning him to the floor. He threw his fist out, but Ben caught him easily by the wrist and pinned both of his hands to the floor above his head. He grabbed Peter’s chin with his other hand and wrenched his head forward, forcing him to meet his intent blue eyes. Peter continued to struggle feebly, staring right through him.

“Look. _Look at me_.” Ben dug his knee harder into Peter’s chest until he felt his ribs creak. With a wheeze, Peter finally stopped writhing. “I got you. You’re not in the icebox. You’re out here, with me.” Ben kept his voice low and gentle, coaxing. Slowly, the frantic, far away look in Peter’s eyes faded as he was drawn back to reality, out of the box and into the dark room with the medical table.

Ben shifted his body so that he wasn’t pressing down so heavily on Peter’s chest, but his hands stayed in place. “Can you breathe?”

Dazed, soaked, and shivering helplessly, Peter took in a shaky breath, then let it out.

“There you go,” Ben said softly. He released Peter’s wrists, but continued to hover over him. “What are you crying for, huh?”

Peter blinked, confused for a moment before realizing that his blurry vision and damp cheeks were from tears, not the water. He screwed his eyes shut, frantically gathering what last energy he had to will himself to stop, _make_ himself stop, but they only came faster.

 _No, come on, pull yourself together,_ damnit. He couldn’t lose it, not now, not like this. He felt something inside him, some tight ball of control that he always kept tightly wound, even when he was afraid, even when he was backed into a corner with no way out, and he felt that ball starting to unravel, faster and faster. _Pull it together!_

“Fuck.” The choked word escaped Peter’s lips before he could bite down on his knuckles to stifle the noise. He tried to curl up, anything to hide his face and get control over himself,  but suddenly Ben had him by the shoulder and was yanking him upright, toward him.

Peter stiffened and made a weak attempt to pull back, still blinded by his tears. “ _Let go_ -”

Ben, unrelenting, ignored him and his uncoordinated attempts to land a hit. He wrapped his arm tighter around Peter, pulling him in until his cold, shivering body was tucked close and his face was pressed into the crook of Ben’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” His voice lowered to a soft whisper as he looked down at the tears streaming down Peter’s reddened cheeks, eyes shut impossibly tight.

Peters hands clenched into fists in Ben’s shirt. _I can’t do this, not now, no-_

“You don’t have to fight anyone. There’s nobody to fight.”

Peter finally broke. He went totally limp, buried his face into Ben’s shoulder, and cried, harder than he ever had before in his life. Noiseless sobs and shivers wracked his body so hard that he could barely breathe, all the while Ben continued talking in the same gentle voice, whispering in Peter’s ear and holding him tightly.


End file.
